BEMIDJI, Minn. – Pulitzer Prize winner Nathasha Trethewey, the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Emory University and the distinguished visiting writer for Bemidji State University’s Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, will hold a public reading of her work on Monday, June 16, in the lower Hobson Memorial Union. The 7:30 p.m. reading is one of six public readings by MNWC faculty during the conference, which will take place June 15-20 on the Bemidji State campus.

Trethewey is the award-winning author of Native Guard, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize; Bellocq’s Ophelia, The American Library Association’s 2003 Notable Book; and Domestic Work, which was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and which won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry.

Each June, writers gather at Bemidji State University on the shores of Lake Bemidji for an enlivening week of literary activity at the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. Each morning, participants gather their thoughts, notebooks and writing utensils and head off to workshops where teachers and fellow participants provide constructive feedback and encouragement.

The Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference is directed by Susan Carol Hauser, administrated by Sean Hill and coordinated by Tammi Hargung.